The Girl in Red
by The Amazing Anigirl
Summary: John Smith acted for the good of his nation and his family when he killed the Hangman of Prague, Reinhard Heydrich. But all actions have consequences, and Smith's might cost him everything. Smith is, after all, not the only man willing to do anything for his family.
1. Long Ago and Far Away

In a house that was far too nice for the child of a soldier and far too modest for the ruler of a nation, in a land long ago brought to its knees by the brutality of a fascist invader, a child sat by the window, peering out at the front gate.

He was waiting with bated breath, eyes only leaving the driveway for long enough to look to his side at the clock. One minute. One minute and the car would pull up. Papa would be home then, tired and likely still busy, but home and safe, which was all that the child of such a powerful and targeted man could ask for. He bit the bottom of his lip. If only Papa could have worked from home. Everything would have been so much better if he didn't have to go into the city, drive in a barely-guarded vehicle, and stay in the office for hours on end while his son busied himself with learning and play, the fear ever present in his heart that his father would never come home.

Thirty seconds.

He pressed his nose against the window, fogging it up. His sister flitted through the front yard, chasing after what looked like a frog but could have very well been any sort of jumping creature. He chuckled. The little three-year-old girl never seemed to have fear on their father's behalf, but then she didn't really know what he did. In her innocent mind, a soldier was a hero and heroes never got hurt, at least not permanently.

The boy tugged at the collar of his Hitler-Youth uniform. Five seconds.

Three.

Two.

One.

The car should have been there right then. Papa was never late. Never. Not when he said he'd be back at 5PM sharp. If he said he'd be back at 5PM sharp barring an emergency, then that could only mean that an emergency was taking place.

Thirty seconds late.

One minute late.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Twenty.

Mother called to him from the living room, asking him if he was okay, and he replied that he was watching his sister play. A bald-faced lie, for she had moved back to the swimming pool and wasn't even in the front yard, but his mother didn't question him. He was a big boy, after all, nine years old. If he wanted to tarry by the window, he was allowed. So long as he got to the dinner table on time.

He sighed. Mother never seemed to worry about Papa. Even that one time his plane had been shot down and he had been missing for weeks, whatever worry she had felt remained hidden during the whole ordeal. She trusted him too much.

Twenty one.

Twenty two.

Twenty three.

At thirty, Klaus Heydrich stopped breathing and started imagining all the horrible things that could have happened to his father en route to his office in Prague. Czechs, Jews, Americans, Soviets, Brits, perhaps a rival in the SS. Reinhard Heydrich had a plethora of enemies and though he had tried to keep his son and his work as far from each other as humanly possible, Klaus had heard enough worried whispers exchanged between him and mother to know that he was more hated than loved by most people in and out of the Reich.

But the nine-year-old couldn't be bothered with the complexities of wartime morality or what was necessary for the greater good. All he cared about was getting a 'Good Night' from his father tonight, and next, and every night if he and his father were fortunate.

"He's not home yet?"

A young voice, very much like his own, startled Klaus. He turned to face his brother, Heider, one year his junior, a boy that could have very well been his twin and was often mistaken for one. They weren't quite identical: Heider Heydrich's face was a bit rounder and seemed to be almost constantly fixed in a worriedly bemused expression even when he was happy while Klaus tended to display a more thoughtfully optimistic façade even when he was as worried as he was now.

Klaus shook his head and Heider got down on his knees next to his brother. The boys sat side-by-side in silence, noses pressed against the polished glass. Klaus' fear didn't go away, but it stopped mounting. It was good to not be alone, to have someone to share it with. Mother didn't understand, Silke didn't understand, and to a degree Heider didn't understand it the way he did. Heider hadn't peeked in on as many of father's meetings, eavesdropped on as many conversations, heard as many secrets. Nevertheless, Heider knew it better than anyone else in the house did, and that was enough for Klaus to appreciate his presence.

"Maybe…an emergency?" Heider suggested. Klaus nodded.

"Some Jews?" asked Heider. Klaus shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said. There were too few Jews left in Prague. They were all in the East, at the work camps, too far away to cause a ruckus or be a true threat to Papa. Reinhard Heydrich might have been lax when it came to his own security (he had complained about being coddled like a toddler to Mother for twenty minutes after Uncle Himmler stopped by for a visit and voiced concern about his open-topped car), but the two or three Jews that remained wouldn't have lasted a second against him and his bodyguard. They certainly wouldn't cause an over-half-hour delay.

"Maybe it's nothing…" Heider said. "Maybe just…soldier problems. Maybe we should just do our homework."

"You go," said Klaus.

"Uhm…I need your help…"

"Heider," giggled Klaus, finally allowing a very small smile to come to his face.

"It's handwriting! I hate handwriting! You have the best handwriting!" Heider cried.

"It's just practice!" giggled Klaus.

"Papa practiced and he still writes awful!"

"Because he always writes with his right hand. He oughta' use his left hand, he writes better when he does."

"He does?"

"I think Grandmother didn't…"

But before their conversation could continue, there was a sound: the rumble of an engine. The blue eyes of both boys shot to the driveway and Klaus' heart plummeted when he saw that the passenger seat was empty.

Klaus acted without thought or a word, nearly knocking his brother to the floor as he bolted from the window and out the door, throwing it open so fiercely that he nearly knocked over a vase and managed to get a shout from his mother about horsing around.

Klaus ignored her, ignored Heider calling to him, ignored Silke as she tried to strut up to him and brag about the frog she had caught. He ran to the car just as the driver emerged, stumbling and grasping his head. Klaus was about to shout at the driver, to interrogate him as to Papa's whereabouts and demand to be taken to him.

It wasn't until he got close that he realized the driver was not the giant Johannes Klein, but Reinhard Heydrich himself: blond hair covered by a skewed SS cap, blood visible on the buttons and white undershirt his uniform. Panic threatened the child's heart, but it left him when he saw the Head of the Gestapo smiling.

"Pap…"

Before the child could finish a word, the elder Heydrich laughed. Klaus' father had an odd laugh: his voice had always been high-pitched and when he laughed it came across as more of a bleat,. Uncle Heinz sometimes told stories of how Papa was tormented by bullies who would make fun of him for his laugh. He had even posited that the reason Reinhard rarely laughed anymore was because it brought back too many bad memories.

But the senior Heydrich laughed right then and pulled his son into a triumphant embrace.

"What did I tell you, Klaus?" he said. "Those Czech vermin can't lay a hand on your Papa."

Klaus nodded. Of course, he shouldn't have doubted him, but he hadn't been able to keep the worry away. He would have to work harder at trusting his father. But for now, he was happy. His heart was calm once more, reassured by the fact that Klaus Heydrich still had a father.

Of course, across Europe and beyond, the news of Reinhard Heydrich's continued health was not greeted with relief. Operation Anthropoid had failed, the newspapers in England and America reported the next day. One particular paper bearing the bad news was plucked up by an American officer, John Smith, who took one look into the icy eyes of the Man with the Iron Heart and cursed any deity that might have existed for sparing such a monster.

In a few years, when he had his own boy to come home to, Smith would have even more of a reason to curse the fact that Klaus still had a father.

* * *

Yeah, yeah, I know, I already have like four other long fics I need to finish, shut up! (No, I'm kidding, don't shut up…Review! Review!)

Anyway, to make a long author note short: I love history, and I also love the show 'Man in the High Castle'. Strangely, I actually like it a great deal more than I like the book except in one category: Reinhard Heydrich. The bald guy who threatens Smith, for those of you who don't know, and a real historical character I happen to know quite a bit about because I've done like six projects on him.

In the book, Heydrich was never seen, but there was an interesting dilemma going on because even though Heydrich is very intelligent and dangerous, in the book he didn't support the war on Japan, as opposed to Joseph Goebbels, who did. I thought the series kind of didn't get his character right in some places (literally, he's the most arrogant human being on the planet earth and he's just gonna let Heusmann take the reins? Yeah, right, while you're at it try and convince me that Goebbels beat Jesse Owens at the Olympics), and while I was pondering this matter in relation to the research I've done, I decided I had no choice but to do a fic.

Not sure how long this'll be, but reviews always help me to persevere! I'll still be updating my other stories, of course, but this one's on the pile now too. Yay!

Just a few history notes: Operation Anthropoid was a Czech operation that killed Reinhard Heydrich in real life, but obviously Man in the High Castle has him survive. Klaus Heydrich is Reinhard's first-born son.

And with that, I'm out! Thanks for reading, thanks even more if you review or favorite! I'll be back!


	2. Like a Semite in a Hiding Place

1962:

Papa didn't come home.

SS Untersturmführer Klaus Heydrich had waited and waited. The junior Heydrich had sworn to himself twenty years ago that he wouldn't wait by the window like he had as a worrisome nine-year-old ever again, no matter how late his father was.

The twenty-nine year old, however, couldn't help but pass by the window, making excuses every time he snuck a peek. Had the servants mown the lawn earlier? Was it cold outside? Gosh, he hadn't realized how wrinkled the swastika flag by the door was, he'd better spend about twenty minutes straightening it out, eyes fixed on the front driveway all the while.

But eventually he ran out of excuses and scurried to the TV, turning it on and flitting to the news. No sirens were blaring, no panicked newsman was flailing his arms and screaming that the all-important Oberstgruppenführer Heydrich had been shot/stabbed/beaten/thrown into a nuclear power plant/arrested.

Instead the newsman sat there, a bright, forced smile on his face as he babbled on in English. Klaus sighed, sat, and took the lack of panic at the newsroom to mean that his father was perfectly fine, just caught up with work. His worry swiftly turned into youthful agitation at his father for leaving him behind. Bad enough that he hadn't been willing to take him along on the mission (he hadn't even deigned it necessary to tell him why the hell they had to scurry to America, only that it involved the American Reichsprotektor, Obergruppenführer Smith), but he just had to leave him at their American house with squat to do except be reminded of the fact that he didn't know English.

Klaus grunted. He wouldn't be surprised if Papa purposely refused to keep any German books (except Mein Kampf, but that was only because he found the English translation unbearable) in their American house as a sly little jab at his son's inability to learn languages. Unlike his father, who was fluent in five languages (even though he evidently had an atrocious accent whenever he tried to speak French), Klaus only knew two, his native German and Czech, and he had only managed to pick up Czech by virtue of the fact that he had spent most of his childhood in Prague amongst the Slavs. It had been necessary to learn if he wanted to enlist any playmates from the nearby village for his and Heider's games.

It wasn't too much of a problem, though: unless he ever needed to go to the Japanese sector for any reason, he would never be in a place where German wasn't widely spoken.

He sunk down on his seat, fiddling with the various medals he had pinned to his SS uniform, the (to him) nonsensical English of the newscaster and wondering for the thousandth time why they were here. He hadn't bothered asking Papa-he rarely ever questioned what Papa said or did unless it involved leaving him behind. _Then_ he had nothing but questions. "What do you mean stay home? Why? What if something bad happens? Don't you remember the Somalia Incident? What do you mean that doesn't count, you almost got your hand cut off!"

On and on until his father would relent and take him along. He was likely the only man alive that had the ability to change his father's mind: normally Reinhard Heydrich lived up to his nickname, the Man with the Iron Heart, and if he set his head to something Hitler himself couldn't have convinced him to act otherwise. He was always convinced that he knew best, and Klaus tended to agree except where it involved keeping him away.

Fortunately his father didn't tend to leave him behind too often: Klaus was his pride. He had made his young son his adjunct for a very good reason. Klaus was a good fighter, a strong man, and loved his father. He was likely the only man in the SS Reinhard could trust completely, and thus Klaus could usually expect that even if he didn't tell any of his other spies and soldiers of his plans, Reinhard would at the very least tell Klaus.

Except this time. This time was odd, in fact: Reinhard had actually _invited_ Klaus along on this one and had been smiling all the while (very much _not_ something he did when giving a typical mission), as though Klaus was eight years old once more and his father had a birthday present waiting in the other room. Yet in spite of how eager he had seemed to have Klaus come along, he hadn't said a word about _what_ they would actually be doing once they hit the shores of America save for the fact that it involved Smith. For good or for ill Klaus didn't know, but he never asked those kinds of questions. He'd go along with what Father asked, as always. Even when it involved being bored out of his wits.

He leaned back, adjusting his gun as he did so and getting comfortable. He should have just gone upstairs and changed, went to bed. There was no real reason to sit there with his sheath digging into his side and the cheerful tone of the American newsman serving as an unorthodox lullaby, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to move. He almost smiled as he thought of what Papa would do when he got home. Likely roll his eyes and mock his son for sleeping by the door like some guard dog, though really it was a weighty feeling in Klaus' chest that kept him down, a strange sort of weight that often forced him to sit or lie down and not move.

Sleep consumed him. He dreamt of nothing in particular, or at least nothing memorable enough that, when the midnight hour had passed and a harsh noise woke him, he recalled what he had been dreaming of.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and pricked up his ears. At first he thought that the strange noise had only been in his dreams, but then he heard it again.

A knock at the door. _Thud, thud, thud._

It was a noise that would have stopped the heart of anyone in the Reich, a noise that Klaus Heydrich and his father had inflicted upon other homes, but which he had never thought he would receive.

He stood swiftly, grabbing his wallet as he did so and shoving it into his pocket, taking stock of what he had. Enough ammo? A knife? Keys?

He had everything and once he had confirmed this, he inhaled and stepped up to the door, hoping that it was simply Father, that he'd simply forgotten his keys.

No such luck, of course. Three SS men stood on his porch, armed, the one in the middle vaguely familiar. It took Klaus a moment to recall the files he and Papa had gone over prior to landing in America and realize that the man was Erich Raeder, Smith's adjunct.

Raeder was smiling, quite friendly it seemed, and Klaus nodded, forcing his face into a welcoming expression.

" _Sieg Heil,_ Untersturmführer Heydrich," said Raeder, raising his hand just enough for formality's sake but not enough to indicate that he was speaking to someone of great importance.

"Heil Hitler," replied Klaus. He could feel his heart throbbing in his chest, pumping blood so frantically that it hurt.

"Your father requests your presence," Raeder said. "He and Obergruppenführer Smith are waiting for you at the SS Headquarters."

"Ah, good, finally," laughed Klaus, praying that his acting skills were better now than they had been as a teen. "I've been waiting all night. Just give me a moment to get that file and I'll be right out."

Raeder's eyes glistened at the word 'file' and he nodded. He made a move as though he was about to step into the threshold of Klaus' home but the younger Heydrich hit him with a furious glare.

"Mind yourself, Raeder," snapped the young man, who had never been as good at striking terror into souls as his father was but had, fortunately, inherited his icy blue eyes. Raeder nodded and stepped back, waving for his men to back away from the door just a bit.

"Of course, Untersturmführer, forgive me," he said.

"No need. But this is…what's the expression? Beyond your station…paygrade? Both, in your case."

With that, the younger Heydrich confidently shut the door.

He had two minutes, he assumed, swiftly putting every one of the three different locks they had on the door in place and shoving a chair in front of the entrance to serve as an extra barrier before bolting to the back of the house. He could hear Raeder and his men shout and kick at the door even as he used a book to smash open a window.

He didn't climb through the window and bolt into the woods, however. Instead the youth swiftly treaded upstairs, into his father's office. He pulled a small key from his pocket and found their emergency hiding place. Father wasn't exactly a paranoid man, and Klaus had always suspected that it was more for his son's safety than his own that Reinhard even bothered having such places installed in his home. It wouldn't protect him forever, but they wouldn't find him for at least an hour, and an hour's head start was all he could ask for right then.

He used his key to unlock the hidden door, tucked in the corner of his father's office, and crawled in, shutting and locking it behind him. Klaus sat there, hugging his knees like a tot playing hide-and-go-seek.

 _Or like a Semite,_ he mused, pressing his ear to the soundproofed wall of his hiding place. Father had told him of all the resourceful ways the Semites had stayed hidden away during the War and even afterwards, during the high days of the Final Solution. Klaus had always wondered if the Führer had been inspired by tales of creative-if claustrophobic-hiding spots tucked in basements and attics and even in plain sight when he had ordered the construction of these little safety crevices.

Of course, such hiding places couldn't last for years, and thankfully Klaus only needed to wait in his hiding place for an hour. Once he had looked at his watch and confirmed that an hour had passed he unlocked the hidden door and crawled out, glancing out the window and confirming that Raeder and his men had left, having 'followed him' into the woods.

 _Thank heavens they didn't have dogs or I'd be a dead man,_ thought Klaus, carefully making his way down to the garage, noting the disorder his American home had been thrown into. Raeder and his men had evidently decided to stay behind just long enough to thoroughly search the place. Bookshelves had been thrown aside, books opened and left about, the couch disassembled. The only thing they hadn't touched had been the TV, which was still on, still broadcasting the news, still showcasing a cheerful English-speaker.

He might have kicked the TV if he weren't too frightened to do so. Instead he managed to make it to his car. The wheels had been slashed. He swore.

 _All right,_ he thought, slipping out into the night and glancing towards the glistening city. _Well…I suppose I don't have much of a choice…_

And with that, thanking whatever deity that might have existed for the starless night that would allow his black-garbed body to blend into the shadows, he set off towards the city.

* * *

Special thanks to 'Guest' for the review and to everyone who's reading! I'll be back!


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